Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 451 posts

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#31

Post by alkonaut »

Chyzwar wrote: post #21
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not biogas? Not possible to produce enough?

Previous ideas about bio fuels created disaster in Third World countries. https://www.livekindly.co/norway-ban-palm-oil-biofuel/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-palm-oil-deforestati... Initially, Europe was thinking that biofuels would be a good way to support some counties, but the result was far from good. Wind and solar are the best sources of energy, but lack of good grid scale energy storage make them im…

Using palm oil for biofuel sounds like the worst idea ever. I thought biogas was normally produced from wastewater treatment and trash. Sweden does around 2TWh a year of it that way which isn’t a lot (2-3% of total energy use perhaps?) but it’s, for example the only gas used to heat stockholm.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#32

Post by tremon »

freeflight wrote: post #27
alkonaut wrote: post #18

There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…

> independent of eastern natural gas. It's interesting how trade relationships that are centuries old, are now seen in a negative context solely on a foreign policy basis that's often dictated from across the Atlantic. Particularly when they go completely contrary to the other stated goal; Climate change. Western Europe has been dependent on Eastern Europe's resources for a very long time, as Siberia is the largest c…

Western Europe has been dependent on Eastern Europe's resources for a very long time, as Siberia is [..]

But Siberia is not Eastern Europe, is it? It lies fully in the Asian part of Russia. Why are you labelling this an East/West thing?

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#33

Post by neximo64 »

There was an insecticide ban (Neonicotinoids) not so long ago, i.e a "complete ban", but then I saw that it didn't apply to greenhouses - where it had more than 80% of its use prior to the ban.

After that alot of the directives that come from the commission, especially involving climate change, if you look at it properly is just greenwashing. France is maybe about the only country that is genuine about it.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/food/plants/pesticides/approval-active-...

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#34

Post by alkonaut »

dathinab wrote: post #25
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not biogas? Not possible to produce enough?

Not a good choice, in many cases using the same space for (human) food or just a forest is a more environments friendly, more subtainable and due to the use of fertilizer sometimes more climate friendly choice (at least in the EU/Germany) It also avoid all kinds of social/human problems. And even if it's not not climate friendly it's not much worse either.

The same space as what? Biogas is produced by rotting in wastewater plants (or that’s what I thought until someone mentioned the idea of growing stuff to make biogas but that sounded like a bad idea as you point out).

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#35

Post by yholio »

nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

> plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

It's a handout to the dying hydrogen industry of which EU was a huge supporter of. The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars, and the new hype in the industry is using excess renewable electricity to store in hydrogen batteries, which would then supply process heat or residential heating with zero emissions.

This is all a bunch of crap that will never be economic, since transporting, handling and using hydrogen is a nightmare and generating it via electrolysis is expensive and ineficient - to the point where the only economic source is to crack methane and release CO2. But that does not seem to stop the hydrogen hype, and it will likely continue in Europe for a few more years, until die it must, as prescribed by the laws of physics.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#36

Post by dathinab »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #14

Gas is included because the German """green""" party has heavily lobbied for it. The Belgians """greens""" announced that its okay for them to use gas, because overall, in Europe, other countries will offset it. Greenpeace lobbies for it because they, themselves, sell gas. Nuclear had to be defended tooth and nail for over a year, with active rejection from the Germans for its inclusion in that list. Green parties ac…

It's really not that simple.

If you want to change thing you need to stay realistic.

For example only very clean gas power plants are included.

Through I can't deny that the German Green party is kind a joke.

They have been founded a movement heavily manipulated by the DDR to destabilize the BRD. Which is where their absolute-no to nuclear comes from (through most, probably ask nuclear plants in Germany are older less safe designs which IMHO should be shut down, there are other things too).

They have for years tolerated, sometimes supported certain groups of people for votes. Exactly this groups which are now one of the driving forces behind "unreasonable" anti-vax movements.

They have multiple times shown they are quite a bit affected by corrup (but potential legal) lobbyism.

They are known to sometime push idiologic things which aren't fully thought out. Which in the first view might look good, but if you look into it they have the opposite effect on the larger picture or other major negative effects outwighting any benefits.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#37

Post by alkonaut »

freeflight wrote: post #27
alkonaut wrote: post #18

There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…

> independent of eastern natural gas. It's interesting how trade relationships that are centuries old, are now seen in a negative context solely on a foreign policy basis that's often dictated from across the Atlantic. Particularly when they go completely contrary to the other stated goal; Climate change. Western Europe has been dependent on Eastern Europe's resources for a very long time, as Siberia is the largest c…

Not sure what your point is: once no fossil fuel is used to heat Europe (which has to be very soon), something else will. The replacement could be anything but it seems unlikely to be coming from Siberia.

Europe need a to take some quick and uncomfortable decisions here. It can’t be acceptable to have homes heated with fossil fuel anywhere in the rich part of the EU at least, even just a decade from now. This was just a climate issue up until the annexation of Crimea. Now it’s a question of what western democracies can and can’t do (such as: would if Finland wants to join NATO and Russia threatens Germany with gas shortages unless they veto).

The grants for switching fossil burners for heat pumps in single family homes have existed (at least in Sweden, Finland etc) for what, 20 years now? What’s happening on that front on the continent? Are there no grants? Are they not attractive?

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#38

Post by jillesvangurp »

nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Yes, it's oddly specific but apparently intended to allow countries to classify energy from such plants as "green" and treat it as such when buying/selling or taxing it. That is important because a lot of companies that are interested in buying green energy in order to reduce their carbon emissions would care about their energy being labeled as green. There is a lot of book keeping that is happening related to this and some big financial interests across the EU. Demand for non green energy is going to be dropping as companies shoot for being carbon neutral and are incentivized to switch to green energy.

The Germans are going to have to build a lot of new capacity until 2030 because their new government just committed to closing all their coal plants by then. Inevitably, that's going to involve building some new gas plants. And those won't be green unless they meet those criteria. So, that construction permit end date is interesting here. This clearly is a stop gap solution so Germany can get rid of coal and build some "greener" replacement plants without creating a demand problem for energy produced by those new plants. If they weren't green, lots of companies would end up buying their energy from other suppliers.

After 2030, the attention will shift to getting rid of natural gas completely; hence the further restriction of having a plan for switching to something else. Natural gas is already a bit on the expensive side and lowering the carbon output won't help with that. But it's going to take a bit longer.

Nuclear is in there because lots of countries in the EU are still building new nuclear plants and they don't actually emit carbon. So, calling that green is a lot less controversial.

So, odd but I can see the logic. I don't necessarily agree with it though. If it emits carbon, it's a problem and as a consumer I would not want to be tricked into buying "green" energy like that. People are going to notice this and call bullshit on that.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#39

Post by scrollaway »

retinaros wrote: post #23

in france gov passed a law that will give a bad grade to gas heated houses (if the grade is bad you cant rent your house) and a good one to electricity. oh and because of europe we import electricity from germany that is burning coal for it. we are really in the middle of a green idiocracy

This is misinformation in both paragraphs.

The “bad grade” takes a lot into account and between all the exceptions it is primarily aimed at new constructions.

As for your second paragraph, I have no idea what you’re smoking. We’re Europe’s largest exporter of electricity, thanks to our nuclear power.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#40

Post by ClumsyPilot »

yholio wrote: post #35
nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

> plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035. It's a handout to the dying hydrogen industry of which EU was a huge supporter of. The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars, and the new hype in the industry is using excess renewable electricity to store in hydrogen batteries, which would then supply process heat or residential heating with zero emissions. This is all a bunch of crap…

"The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars"

It was never meant to succeed, much like Apple's concessions to right to repair, it's just a distraction designed to buy time

Post reply on HN